There are some obvious events, organizations and individuals that are not listed because others have written exhaustively on these subjects (e.g. Martin Luther King, Jr., the desegregation of UGA, SNCC, etc.). However, if you wish to make a case for doing some aspect of a familiar topic that (you believe) has yet to be explored sufficiently, then I will let you make your case.

The objective is to have you examine some aspect of the movement that we did not cover. You should allow yourself to be informed and inspired by the themes that we covered in looking at individual leadership and collective activism.

This lesson plan may be used to address the academic standards listed below. These standards are drawn from Content Knowledge: A Compendium of Standards and Benchmarks for K-12 Education: 2nd Edition and have been provided courtesy of theMid-continent Research for Education and Learningin Aurora, Colorado.

Grade level:6-8, 9-12Subject area:United States historyStandard: Understands the struggle for racial and gender equality and for the extension of civil liberties.Benchmarks:Benchmark 6-8: Understands individual and institutional influences on the civil rights movement (e.g., the origins of the postwar civil rights movement; the role of the NAACP in the legal assault on segregation; the leadership and ideologies of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X; the effects of the constitutional steps taken in the executive, judicial, and legislative branches of government; the shift from de jure to de facto segregation; important milestones in the civil rights movement between 1954 and 1965; Eisenhower’s reasons for dispatching federal troops to Little Rock in 1957).

Benchmark 9-12: Understands how diverse groups united during the civil rights movement (e.g., the escalation from civil disobedience to more radical protest; issues that led to the development of the Asian Civil Rights Movement and the Native American Civil Rights Movement; the issues and goals of the farm labor movement and La Raza Unida).

Benchmark 9-12: Understands significant influences on the civil rights movement (e.g., the social and constitutional issues involved in thePlessy v. Ferguson(1896) andBrown v. Board of Education(1954) court cases; the connection between legislative acts, Supreme Court decisions, and the civil rights movement; the role of women in the civil rights movement and in shaping the struggle for civil rights).

Grade level:6-8, 9-12Subject area:United States historyStandard: Understands economic, social, and cultural developments in the contemporary United States.Benchmarks:Benchmark 6-8: Understands how different groups attempted to achieve their goals (e.g., the grievances of racial and ethnic minorities and their reference to the nation’s charter documents to rectify past injustices; local community efforts to adapt facilities for the disabled.

Benchmark 9-12: Understands major contemporary social issues and the groups involved (e.g., the current debate over affirmative action and to what degree affirmative action policies have reached their goals; the evolution of government support for the rights of the disabled; the emergence of the Gay Liberation Movement and civil rights of gay Americans; continuing debates over multiculturalism, bilingual education, and group identity and rights vs. individual rights and identity; successes and failures of the modern feminist movement).

Grade level:6-8, 9-12Subject area:civicsStandard: Understands the role of diversity in American life and the importance of shared values, political beliefs, and civic beliefs in an increasingly diverse American society.Benchmarks:Benchmark 6-8: Knows major conflicts in American society that have arisen from diversity (e.g., North/South conflict; conflict about land, suffrage, and other rights of Native Americans; Catholic/Protestant conflicts in the 19th century; conflict about civil rights of minorities and women; present day ethnic conflict in urban settings).

Benchmark 9-12: Knows examples of conflicts stemming from diversity, and understands how some conflicts have been managed and why some of them have not yet been successfully resolved.

Benchmark 9-12: Knows how the racial, religious, socioeconomic, regional, ethnic, and linguistic diversity of American society has influenced American politics through time.

Grade level:6-8, 9-12Subject area:civicsStandard: Understands issues concerning the disparities between ideals and reality in American political and social life.Benchmarks:Benchmark 6-8: Knows some of the efforts that have been put forth to reduce discrepancies between ideals and the reality of American public life (e.g., abolition, suffrage, civil rights, environmental protection movements).

Benchmark 9-12: Knows historical and contemporary efforts to reduce discrepancies between ideals and reality in American public life (e.g., union movements, government programs such as Head Start, civil rights legislation and enforcement).